WORCESTER, Mass. - The un-crewed Artemis I mission will get another attempt at launching to the moon Saturday.
The originally scheduled launch was scrubbed Monday morning due to issues with one of the rocket's engines. NASA mission managers said one of the rocket's four engines could not reach the proper temperature range that is required to start a liftoff.
Artemis I is just the beginning of a program that aims to return people to the moon, and eventually land crewed missions on Mars.
Spectrum News spoke with Nikolaos Gatsonis, head of aerospace engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, about what he will be looking for from the mission.
"We want to see a successful mission," Gatsonis said. "We want to see a successful two minute and eight minute points where specific events that happen from a propulsion standpoint. We want to see then the cryogenic propulsion unit kicking the Orion spacecraft into the final orbit. And then we want to see a successful operation which is going to take a couple of weeks to perform with the fly-bys, and of course the return of the crew vehicle, so we see the completion of all of these technical operations."
If the launch doesn't happen Saturday, there is still another backup opportunity for launch on Monday, September 5.